Interstellar: a Classic Sci-fi Movie with Warmth
“Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends the dimensions of time and space.”
If I have to select the best science fiction movie I have seen, Interstellar will definitely be on my list. Not only is it showing the beauty of the universe and interesting scientific settings, but also because it tells a story full of warmth and shows the charm of human nature. What transcends cold science is love and selfless sacrifice for great hope. In order to narrate the touching story, direct parting scenes and a heroic plot are far less enough. The tragic and powerful soundtrack takes the audience’s emotions to a higher level. The facial expressions and movements of actors often move people silently. Lots of small details and foreshadowing enrich their characteristics, allowing viewers to better understand the character’s heart. A classic movie is constructed in many aspects.
The beginning of a movie should capture the audience’s heart and let them be willing to follow it. At the same time, it should also explain the background setting and the identity of the characters. The beginning of Interstellar uses a three-line parallel approach to tell the story. An older woman is reminiscing about her father, saying that at that time many people were farmers, but it was not his first profession. Then, the screen shifts to a man driving an aircraft and facing an accident. It turns out that this is a father who dreams of the disaster before.
He gets up and walks to the window, a large swath of crops and sandstorms in front of him. Several elderly people join in the memory, saying that crops got blight, and they had to deal with the dust everywhere. In these short two and a half minutes, the film explains the background very smoothly, letting the audience know about the crisis encountered by Earth and the previous experience of the protagonist, Cooper. As a sci-fi movie, the dream that Cooper is driving a cool spaceship and his intense handling excites the target audience, sci-fi fans at first.
Later, the film enriches the setting of the world by depicting some ordinary life scenes. This method not only gives the audience more information but also reflects the character and the relationship between the roles. Cooper is going to attend a parent-teacher meeting for his son, Tom, and daughter, Murph. On the road and seeing a very advanced military drone flying at low altitude, they drive to chase the drone and hack it with a laptop. The drone’s command base has been closed for more than a decade due to the energy crisis, and Cooper just wants to remove its battery and use it on agricultural machines. The audience can feel the severity of the food and energy crisis. Although technology is advanced that individuals can hack a military drone with a laptop, the real embarrassment makes people struggle for survival everywhere.
In the conversation between Cooper and Murph’s teacher, the teacher criticizes Murph for propagating the Apollo moon landing in the class, saying that the US faked the Apollo mission to bankrupt the Soviet Union. The teacher also believes that if people of the last century can spend their energy to protect Earth, instead of wasting money to explore the universe and invent useless machines, then humans will not be in disaster now. As a pilot and engineer, Cooper firmly believes in science and technology. He hopes that his daughter’s love for science will not be obliterated, and would rather let her not go to school. While further improving the background setting, the audience can feel the close relationship between Cooper and Murph, as well as their belief in science.
As a warm-hearted science fiction movie, the relationship between Cooper and his daughter is a very important plot in Interstellar. The audience first needs to understand the relationship between father and daughter and the personality traits of the characters in order to have empathy for them and be moved by the story. Murph says items in her room are often moved by a “ghost”. Cooper does not believe in ghosts, but he does not blame Murph, because he trusts his daughter, so he teaches her to record the phenomenon scientifically and analyze it. Cooper loves Murph very much and supports her love of science.
In an accidental sandstorm, Cooper also witnesses the strange phenomenon. He immediately realizes that it is an anomaly of gravitation and obtains a coordinate through analysis. He sets off to find out and tells Murph to stay home, but halfway through, Cooper finds Murph secretly hiding under the passenger seat. Cooper is not angry at Murph’s trick and disobedience. The place on the coordinates is the hidden NASA. Although the public disagrees with spending money on space exploration, NASA is still secretly studying plans for human migration to other planets. For the small hope of mankind’s continued existence, Cooper agrees to participate in NASA’s mission, which means that he will not know if and when he can return to Earth. After returning home, Murph does not want his father to take risks, so she cries in the room with her head covered. Cooper comes to comfort and hands Murph a watch, saying that time would slow down during interstellar travel. They can compare the time difference after this. Murph shouts out that the “ghost” lets him stay and slams the watch on the ground.
Helpless Cooper has no choice but to separate from Murph. When Cooper walks out of the house and gets in the car, the volume of the symphony created by Hans Zimmer gradually increases, and more instruments join in the performance for hovering ethereal melodies. The tragic melody fully embodies the sadness and desperation of parting and makes the audience feel it from a more dimensional experience. Moreover, these ethereal melodies also symbolize the vagueness and hope of mankind in the vast universe. At this moment, a small detail makes most audiences cry. Cooper turns over the clutter in the passenger seat again, but Murph does not hide underneath. Murph rushes out of the house crying but cannot catch up with her father’s car. The facial expressions of father and daughter touch the hearts of the audience because we learned the intimacy of their daily lives.
In the movie, it is not only Cooper who is separated from his daughter for great wishes. In the subsequent interstellar exploration, the audience can see magnificent stars and cool spaceships, experience the excitement of passing through a wormhole, and learn fascinating physical and scientific effects. The other protagonist, Dr. Brand, strives for a decade to find the lover who has previously lost his signal on another planet. She believes that “Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends the dimensions of time and space.” Maybe it is love that allows Cooper, falling into the black hole, to become the “ghost” to transmit the information that can determine the fate of mankind to Murph.
Science fiction movies are not documentaries and cannot only contain beautiful scenery or profound scientific knowledge. Christopher Nolan invited Professor Kip Thorne, a Nobel laureate in physics, to be the science advisor for Interstellar, and used the best photography equipment and a large number of models to present realistic pictures. Interstellar depicts human warmth and rich emotions vividly through many details, and all aspects of excellence make this movie a classic.
